Directors: Dylan Bank
Screenplay: Dylan Bank, Morgan Pehme
Producers: Ged Dickersin, Edward Gregory, Morgan Pehme
Starring: Jason Scott Campbell, Nicole Roderick
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 111 min.

(2.5/5)

Many directors choose to start off their careers with horror films. Gore is easy to create and there’s a mentality that fans of the genre will watch anything. Dylan Bank wasn’t just interested in making a horror film, he wanted to say something more with his project though what that “something” is remains illusive.

Nightmare starts innocuously enough. A director is celebrating the success of his film school project when he spots a beautiful and exotic woman across the room. The two have a discussion on films and acting before engaging in a night of steamy sex. When they wake, there’s a camera at the foot of the bed but neither can remember it being there the night before. Curious, they play the tape to find a snuff film featuring none other than themselves as the killers. Distraught, they argue for a few moments about the tape, how it got there and why they can’t remember the events it depicts. The student (he is simply referred to as “the director” throughout the film), runs off to class while Natalya is left to fend for herself and figure out what the deal is with the mysterious tape.

By this point, I was fully on board with the film. How did the camera get there? Who put it there? What’s the meaning of the video? What are they going to do next? But Bank doesn’t simply stick to those questions, oh no. Instead, he ads a secondary layer of WTF by having the student director pitch the events that just unfolded to the class as his next project. So now we have the crazy ass events actually happening and the same events being captured on tape for a film. The next thing you know, reality as it occurs and how it is captured on film become muddled and confused to the point where it’s impossible to make out what’s really happening and what has been made up.

The major problem with Nightmare is that it simply tries too hard to be shocking. The basic idea for the film is genius but the decision to take it down the nudity filled horror route works to the film’s disadvantage. The nudity and violence works well in the first tape (mostly because of the shock that the tape depicts events which couldn’t possibly have happened – yet) but as the film progresses and the story unravels further, it feels over-the-top and played to death.

Even in a confused mess of events, real, imagined or created, the film brings up some fascinating ideas such as the idea of reality feeding fiction and vice versa. As their lives fall apart, one can’t help but wonder if any of it would have happened if the student director had simply written off the first tape. True, it’s only reasonable to assume that he and Natalya would want to find out how and why it was created to begin with but would it even exist if the student director hadn’t pitched it as his class project? It’s the sort of question that has come up in other indie films, specifically Timecrimes and Primer, but the issue was handled much better in those two films.

Nightmare has a slue of problems (including mediocre acting though the leads play their roles well), the most grievous of which is the script which careens out of control in the first 20 minutes, but between it’s premise and the biting commentary on filmmaking (there are some excellent observations about the filmmaking process), there’s little to get excited about. Some may like the mystery of trying to figure out what’s going on but I stopped trying or caring to know 40 minutes in. Still, Bank shows promise and I appreciate that his debut wasn’t straightforward. The film may not work but it suggests he is a director with unique vision and one who is not afraid to do things his own way; I’d like to see what he has to offer as a follow-up.

Nightmare is now available on DVD from IFC Films.